Schools’ ex- chief back for five days

Fired PB official to fix retiree snag

A Pine Bluff School District superintendent who was fired last year is returning to work for five days as part of a court settlement.

By doing so, former Superintendent Linda Watson will be eligible for her full retirement benefits , said School Board President Henry Dabner.

The Pine Bluff School Board accepted the agreement Thursday.

Watson filed retirement papers with the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System in November, but those papers would be voided if she worked again before May 1. When she worked on Saturday, Watson voided her previous retirement, said Dabner. By working four more days before June 30, when her contract originally expired, she will qualify to retire again with full benefits, he said.

Watson will be required to repay any retirement benefits she has already received.

Watson filed a federal lawsuit June 9 claiming she was wrongfully terminated by the School Board two months earlier and had suffered financial losses and a tarnished reputation as a result.

In a demand for arbitration filed with the lawsuit, Watson claimed the School Board ordered her in the fall of 2014 to “take illegal actions” by giving Michael Nellums, the high

school principal, back pay for the previous fiscal year with money that was to be used for the current year.

“Plaintiff, in good faith, believed that the board’s order to pay Michael Nellums was a violation of the law,” according to the arbitration document.

Dabner said the payment to Nellums from the subsequent school year budget amounted to about $ 10,000.

“It was a contract dispute over the amount of money that he was supposed to be paid,” Dabner said.

According to an Oct. 3, 2014, article in the Pine Bluff Commercial, Watson cautioned the board that the payment could trigger a state audit.

Because of the issue over the principal’s pay, Watson was subjected to “intense scrutiny and harassment” and the board began conspiring to fire her, according to the lawsuit.

Dabner said Watson was fired over “other issues.”

Leon Jones, another School Board member, said he agreed with Watson about the payment to Nellums.

“I thought it was a problem,” he said. “I was against it.”

A message left for Watson’s attorney, Richard Mays of Little Rock, wasn’t immediately returned Monday.

Missy Duke of Little Rock, who represented the school district, also didn’t return a telephone call or email message Monday.

Nellums didn’t return an email message Monday.

The board had suspended Watson on March 16, 2015, for 30 days and voted to hire T. C. Wallace Jr. of Nashville, Tenn., as the interim superintendent. When the board fired Watson, it didn’t announce a reason, and members wouldn’t discuss the matter.

Watson’s lawsuit accuses the district of breach of contract, saying the school district wrongfully terminated her without due process. The suit further states that Watson “has lost wages, lost fringe benefits … [ and] incurred other damages in amount to be proven at trial.”

The suit also states that Pine Bluff School Board members “made false and stigmatizing statements” about Watson in media accounts, and that “these statements had no basis in fact and were made with actual malice. As a result, [ Watson] has lost reputation and has been damaged.”

Watson said in the lawsuit that she was denied a request for a “name- clearing hearing” in March of 2015. It also states that Watson was “terminated out of the blue without even so much as a telephone call,” violating her right to due process.

Watson, who previously was the Little Rock School District superintendent from 2007 until early 2011, was paid $ 150,000 per year in the Pine Bluff position.

Watson announced in early March 2015 before she was suspended that she would not seek a new contract with the district when her contract expired June 30 of this year.